With two entries in this category, it was Dyson's Airblade Tap that came out on top and claimed the Food Safety and Innovation in Non-Food category at this year's Food magazine awards.
The Airblade Tap is a touch-free appliance that combines hand washing and hand drying in one unit. The product is the result of nearly three years' intensive R&D by a team of 125 Dyson engineers and an investment of $60m.
Dyson says the Airblade Tap is the fastest, most cost- and environmentally-efficient way to wash and dry hands hygienically, with its compact design also providing a space saving solution for food manufacturing facilities.
In the food sector, the Dyson Airblade Tap is one of only two products approved by HACCP Australia for use in food environments as a hand drying alternative to costly paper towels.
In terms of its sustainability credentials, the Airblade Tap produces 5.8g of CO2 per dry compared to 17.8g of CO2 per dry for other hand dryers and 15.5g of CO2 per dry for paper towels.
Another impressive feat for the company, the product's V4 digital motor is the world's smallest, most efficient, power dense and comprehensive 1600W motor ever developed.
The Airblade Tap also eliminates a number of safety hazards in the workplace including water on a facility's floor, created by users moving from the tap to the hand drying area; the paper towel supply running out; and having overflowing bins of soiled paper towels. The touch-free operation of this all-in-one tap and hand dryer also means the potential for micro-organism transference is reduced.
"Our Dyson Airblade Tap is a fantastic new technology that really looked to solve the problem of things like water on the floor in bathrooms," said Tom Davie, finance and operations director for Dyson in Australia and New Zealand.
"What we did with the Airblade Tap is use the fantastic technology that we'd already developed for our Dyson Airblade product, and integrate it within the tap. So therefore you don't have that situation where you're dropping water on the floor, now you can do it all in one place," he said.
{^youtubevideo|(width)560|(height)340|(rel)True|(url)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByVjIMti6DU|(fs)True|(loop)False|(autoplay)False^}